


Positive Feelings

by voxanonymi (spasmodicIntrigue)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Matsuri Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 17:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20231464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spasmodicIntrigue/pseuds/voxanonymi
Summary: Fat oranges hung from branches slung over the alley, glowing in the late-morning sun. The sweet, tangy scent of citrus slammed into Noctis’ nostrils, lighting a nostalgic flame deep in his gut.For reasons that four city boys find hard to comprehend, oranges are a big deal in Duscae. At the dawn of summer every year, a festival is held to celebrate the weather, the harvest, and the good feelings these oranges are said to bring. For Noctis, and for Ignis, the sweet scent of Duscaen citrus carries with it a warm, homely nostalgia. For the past, for the future, and for each other.





	Positive Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Matsuri: an Ignoct Zine! I've been meaning to post this for a while but kept forgetting because brain be like that. Oh well. Enjoy!

The morning sunlight was warm and gentle over southern Duscae. Within a few hours it would be sweltering, but for now the heat was just enough to soften the Regalia’s seat leather so that Noctis felt like he could sink into it. Perfect weather for a day off.

“So, remind me. We’re going to a _what_ festival _why_?” said Gladio.

“The orange festival!” Prompto answered cheerfully. “Noct heard about it on the radio. Real big deal, apparently.”

“Okay, cool. Why?”

“Why not?” Noctis chimed in, not even bothering to open his eyes. He was leaning back against the headrest considering the benefits of a nap—of which there were many, but was it worth the trouble when they’d be arriving shortly? “Who doesn’t like oranges?”

“You’ve got me there,” said Gladio.

“I dare say we’re in for a day of battling crowds,” said Ignis.

Ignis’ precognition-by-logic was accurate as ever. A field by the festival grounds had been set aside as a makeshift carpark, and it was jam-packed. The grass was run down by the tromping of countless wheels and feet, leaving only the most stubborn tufts of green peeking out from beneath tyres to suggest the field had ever been anything more than a section of dirt.

The festival itself was comprised of a long alley of stalls winding amongst the abundant orchard trees. Colourful signs advertised all manner of attractions, from orange cakes and teas to throw-the-orange-in-the-bucket. None of the festival-goers seemed to mind the combination of dirt and squashed orange sticking to their shoes.

“Whoa,” Prompto marvelled, kneeling up in his seat to peer down the alley as they cruised past in the Regalia. “Look at all the people!”

“The orange festival only comes around once a year,” Ignis explained. “A rather auspicious occasion, actually. The oranges grown in this region are said to invite positive feelings.”

“Cool!” said Prompto. “You know this… how?”

Ignis glanced at Noctis in the rear view, smiling. “Because I know everything,” he said. “Obviously.”

They found a parking space and joined the stream of people meandering towards the festival alley. Families with children, couples arm-in-arm, groups of friends joking and laughing.

It was a beautiful day.

A girl ran past them, turning back to call, “Come on, Dad!”

The girl’s dad jogged to keep up. “Why the hurry?” he panted.

“I need to get to the orange-shooting stall before someone beats my score from last year!”

“Orange-shooting, huh?” Prompto mused. “Like, shooting oranges with a gun, or a gun that shoots oranges?”

Noctis shrugged. “One way to find out.”

“Very true, Noct. Very true,” said Prompto. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I have some children’s butts to kick. Figuratively.”

He jogged off after the girl and her harried father.

“He’s with his own kind, now,” Ignis said sagely. “Children.”

“He’s gonna go easy on them,” said Gladio.

“Of course he will. If he makes a kid cry, _he’ll_ start crying,” Noctis agreed.

At the entrance to the alley, their stroll slowed to a stop. Noctis peered uncertainly at the stalls, the crowd, the trees. Fat oranges hung from branches slung over the alley, glowing in the late-morning sun. The sweet, tangy scent of citrus slammed into Noctis’ nostrils, lighting a nostalgic flame deep in his gut.

“Oh, _hello_,” said Gladio, pointing at a nearby stall. “There’s an overpriced cup of orange cider over there with my name on it.” And off he went.

Noctis watched Gladio’s retreating back and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Gladio’s drinking problem is tearing this family apart.” He turned to Ignis, who had an amused smirk on his face. “Wanna go check out those cakes? Get some recipe inspiration?”

Ignis raised an eyebrow. Noctis grinned innocently.

“Not to say this is a bad way to spend a day off,” Ignis began, “but I feel you may have some ulterior motive for coming here.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“Not at all. I just… didn’t know you remembered.”

Noctis smiled, and breathed in; breathed in that sweet, distinctive, _familiar_ aroma. “Of course I remember.”

How could he forget?

Noctis hated being sick. Sure, no one really _liked_ being sick, but Noctis was sure he hated it more than the average person. Maybe it was because the “I have a cold” card wasn’t enough to get out of school or royal duties, or maybe it was because he seemed to be especially susceptible to whatever bacteria or viruses were spreading throughout the school at any given time, from student to student like a perverse game of telephone.

Ignis had suggested that it could be to do with his largely isolated upbringing, or an unexpected side effect of his childhood Starscourge encounter. Noctis was certain it was his rotten luck. Ignis was just trying to make him feel better—that was his number one directive, anytime Noctis came down with anything from the sniffles to the flu.

In one way or another, he always succeeded.

He brought Noctis oranges. Not the small, unremarkable oranges sold in most nearby supermarkets: these oranges were bulbous and vibrant, fit to bursting with juice and flavour.

An excellent source of vitamin C, Ignis purported. Noctis didn’t care about that, he was just happy to have something to eat with a flavour that could pierce through the numbness wrought on his taste buds by congestion. That, and oranges always were his favourite fruit.

“Where do the oranges come from?” he asked croakily, on one occasion of a particularly nasty head cold. He’d just woken from a nap, groggy and with a headache that felt like there was someone inside his skull trying to drill an escape route through his left temple. He was strewn across his apartment’s couch with his head in Ignis’ lap. His adviser—who was definitely just his adviser and nothing else—was peaceably reading, one-handed, other hand soft on Noctis’ arm.

He glanced down at Noctis, brow furrowing. “Oranges grow on orange trees, Noct.”

Noctis scowled. “You know what I mean.”

Ignis smiled. “There’s a market on the outskirts of the city, near the wall. They thrive off a not-strictly-legal fruit-smuggling business, bringing in produce from all over Lucis—particularly the Duscae region, which is famous for its oranges.”

“Huh,” said Noctis. “So that’s why they’re, like… _better_ than the ones in supermarkets?”

“They’re grown outdoors in the sunlight, rather than in greenhouses, if that’s what you mean, yes.”

“Huh.”

Ignis touched two cool fingers to Noctis’ forehead. “Duscae’s oranges are said to invite positive feelings,” he said softly.

“Could use some of those,” Noctis murmured, letting his eyes drift shut.

“I’ll bet,” Ignis said with an audible smile.

Through the almost cloyingly constant tang of orange on the air, a bass-note scent found its way to Ignis’ nostrils—a scent he could seek out from incredible distances. Like a bloodhound tracking its target, Ignis Scientia could smell coffee from a mile off, and had no shame in it.

A tiny, unremarkable kiosk between the “Squeeze Your Own Juice!” and “citrus sculpting” stalls was selling home-roasted coffee blends.

“_Orange_ coffee?” Ignis muttered sceptically, eyeing the little paper packages tied up with bright-coloured string. “Those are two completely contrasting flavours.”

“Sounds alright to me,” Noctis said, shrugging as he finished off a slice of orange cake. “Sweet and bitter? Why not?”

Ignis hummed. “Perhaps.”

“Isn’t bitter orange a thing? I think I had a bitter orange shower gel, once. Maybe it’s like that. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, Specs.”

Ignis very much hoped the coffee wasn’t like a shower gel, but before he could say as much, the young woman manning the kiosk noticed them looking, and, with a cheery wave, called, “Be with you in a moment!” before turning back to the young couple she was serving.

Noctis snickered. “Now you _have_ to at least try it.”

He was right. It would be rude to walk away now. Ignis’ fast-tracked education had instilled in him, among other things, strict manners—the likes of which he’d attempted to pass on to the young prince.

In that endeavour, he’d failed, and Noctis was a raging hypocrite. By the time the coffee lady had finished serving the couple and fetched Ignis a tester cup of orange coffee, Noctis had wordlessly disappeared from Ignis’ side. Absorbed into the crowd; out of sight, but not out of mind.

“I think he went off towards the Mutant,” said the coffee lady, noting Ignis’ confusion at his sudden solitude.

“Sorry—the _what_?”

“The Mutant!” She pointed over the heads of the crowd, towards a billowing tree at the end of the alley. “The biggest, oldest orange tree in all of Lucis. _Hundreds_ of years old, apparently. Some people think it’s blessed by the Astrals. Science thinks its seed somehow got embedded with a shard of meteor. Which is why we call it the Mutant.”

It _was_ a bigger orange tree than Ignis had ever seen. Fifty feet tall, at least, with a trunk as thick as a young Garula’s torso. Manifold branches and boughs reached out in every direction. He’d noticed it already, of course, but wouldn’t have thought it was an orange tree. Now, however, he noticed the bright, almost _glowing_ bulbs of orange nestled in amongst the glossy green leaves.

“Every year,” the coffee lady continued, “one of the festival organisers climbs the tree and paints a random orange gold. Anyone who can climb up and find it wins a prize.”

Ah. Of _course_ Noctis would be drawn in by that. “I see.”

Throwing frugality to the breeze, Ignis bought a bag of orange coffee grinds, thanked the lady, and politely muscled his way through the crowd towards the so-called Mutant.

The crowd seemed to thin out closer to the tree, creating a welcome clearing. The tree itself radiated the sort of power which either drew one in or imposed distance. Ignis found himself drawn in, because this felt-yet-unfelt force wasn’t unfamiliar to him. It was the same sort of presence he associated with the Crystal, or at least its beneficiaries—particularly the messy-haired prince standing near the foot of the tree, gazing up. Beside him was an A-frame sign which said:

CLIMB TO   
WIN!!!  
Find the   
Golden Orange  
and get a  
PRIZE!!!

The coffee lady’s information proved accurate.

Ignis stepped up beside Noctis, throwing an uncertain glance upwards. There was no glint of gold, just a tangle of branches, leaves, and orange dots.

Noctis turned to him with a smirk. “How was the coffee?”

“Not bad,” Ignis answered. “You should try it, yourself. I hope you’re not thinking of climbing this thing, we ought to be finding Prompto and Gladio and heading back to Caem.”

“How ‘bout a race?” Noctis said, smirk widening.

Ignis was not competitive. “A race?”

“See who can find the golden orange first.”

Ignis was _not_ competitive. “How do I know you won’t cheat?”

Noctis tilted his head; provoking, daring, inviting. “You don’t.”

Ignis was _not competitive_. “What chance do I possibly have if you’re going to _warp_ up there?”

“I dunno, Specs,” Noctis shrugged nonchalantly. “You tell me.”

Okay. Ignis was a little competitive. And Noctis was _awful_ at finding things, be it his socks or his phone.

A smile quirked his own lips, quite against his will. Noctis grinned. Half a second later he disappeared in a crystalline flurry.

With a sigh, Ignis scanned the tree for a good place to start climbing.

What Ignis expected to find when he got to Noctis’ apartment was a Lucian prince on the recovering end of a cold, struggling to finish his biology project on the climate-based adaptations of penguins in northern Lucis compared to those of southern Gralea.

What he found was an empty apartment. No Noctis in the hall, the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, lounge. His laptop was on the dining table, closed and surrounded by textbooks and coffee cups. He was apparently incapable of reusing the same cup.

The only sign that there was anyone home was the balcony door, open just enough for someone to step outside into the late-spring night. Ignis didn’t notice it until he felt the cool breeze filtering in.

He sighed, leaving the bag of oranges on the counter and stepping out onto the balcony.

If Ignis weren’t well aware of all Noctis’ habits and behavioural idiosyncrasies, he might have been a little panicked to find the balcony as deserted as the apartment. As it were, Ignis looked up, and spied the socked undersides of Noctis’ feet dangling off the edge of the penthouse roof.

“Noct?” he called.

No answer. The roof wasn’t _that_ high up, and there was little wind, so Noctis had almost certainly heard. But Ignis didn’t bother calling a second time. He knew it was no use.

His eyes dropped to the balcony railing, determining whether it would be possible to, standing on it, reach up, grab the edge of the roof, and pull himself up. For a shorter man it would be a suicidal endeavour. For Ignis, however, it was perfectly doable.

So he climbed, relying on upper-body strength and athleticism to pull himself safely onto the roof. Noctis looked over with an innocent smile.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

It took about five minutes for Noctis to give up looking for the golden orange. Five minutes of warping from branch to branch was enough for him to conclude that the entire thing was a gimmick and there _was_ no golden orange—the locals probably just wanted to see if tourists would be gullible enough to climb a massive tree under the promise of a prize. There was nothing in here but a tangle of leaves and branches and bunches of oranges with their potent perfume.

Though, Noctis supposed that made _him_ the gullible tourist. Except, he wasn’t technically _climbing_ the tree. And he liked being up high. So, once he gave up the search for the golden orange, he searched instead for the branch with the best view.

Eventually, he chose the intersection of three fairly sturdy branches—as sturdy as they got this high up at least—with a breathtaking view through a sizeable clearing in the dense leaves. He could see the festival grounds, crowded with people; the sea of cars crammed every which way in the makeshift carpark. Further than that, the Disc of Cauthess was luminous in the afternoon sun. Beyond that, light glinted off the bright metal and concrete of Lestallum.

It was nothing like the sort of view Noctis was used to. Of city lights and concrete rooftops, lit-up highways and speeding cars. And the Citadel, always the Citadel, like a beacon calling him home.

He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat as he realised he no longer _had_ a home. He would never see that view again. But it was hard to begrudge the rural beauty laid out before him now. The lands of Lucis. _His_ lands. His kingdom. Still a home of sorts, right?

It took Noctis a moment to notice the nearby rustling. His head jerked towards it.

“Only me,” said Ignis, deftly swinging himself up onto a slender branch, bringing his face level with Noctis’.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Noctis said, grinning.

Ignis chuckled. “No luck, I gather?”

Noctis blinked. Then remembered the golden orange. “Oh. Nah. You neither?”

“Regrettably not. The branches of a tree are like the branches of time: it’s impossible to explore them all. Where you end up is down to fate.”

Noctis rolled his eyes. What an _Ignis_ thing to say. “At least the view is nice.”

Ignis glanced out through the leaves. “Picture perfect,” he said softly.

Together, they stared out across Duscae, enjoying the warm weather and each other’s good company. Still a home of sorts. Noctis couldn’t help but smile to himself.

“Something amusing, Noct?”

Noctis looked over. Ignis’ perch looked uncomfortable, balanced as he was on a wavering branch with his sleeves pushed up to his elbows and his hair slightly mussed.

“Yeah. Who the hell thought of having a festival for _oranges_?”

Ignis snorted. “It does seem strange. But the oranges from this area are—”

“—said to invite positive feelings. Right?”

“Right.” Ignis smiled warmly, adjusting his footing.

The smile disappeared, eyes blowing wide as a series of creaking cracks cut through the air. The branch was going down, and Ignis with it.

“Ignis!” Noctis lurched forward, grabbing the front of Ignis’ shirt with one hand and summoning a sword with the other. He couldn’t see the ground, but he hurled his sword earthwards with as much force as he could and hoped for the best.

Noctis wasn’t used to passengers when he warped. Later, he’d realise how lucky Ignis was to still have all four limbs. They thudded to the ground in a heap, slightly winded but intact. Noctis had practically landed on top of poor Ignis. He could feel an alarmed heartbeat under his head; could feel Ignis’ chest rising and falling with adrenaline-quickened breaths.

He pushed himself up with a slight groan.

“Noct! Are you alright?” Ignis gripped Noctis’ upper arms, eyes wide with shock. There was a twig sticking out of his hair. Noctis almost wanted to laugh.

“Am _I_ alright? You’re the one who nearly fell out of a tree! Are _you_ alright?”

“I’m fine,” said Ignis, as if that much were obvious.

They both jumped as something thudded to the ground by Ignis’ head.

They stared at it.

“Well, then,” said Noctis. “We found the golden orange.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://voxanonymi.tumblr.com/)


End file.
